Soon after this, Burdin, a member of the Academy, in order to test the clairvoyant' powers which had been claimed for the hypnotic subjects, offered a prize of 3,000 francs to any one who could read a given writing without the aid of eyes. Several candidates tried for the prize, but all failed of obtaining it. After this the Academy refused to pay any further attention to the question of Magnetism. While these investigations were going on in France the subject was receiving considerable attention in Germany. After about 1830, however, the belief in the magnetism theory began to decline rapidly in both Germany and France. Siemers of Hamburg, and Hensler and En-nemoser in Bavaria, still continued to support it. Among others who interested themselves in the study of the magnetic phenomena should be mentioned Most, Herschel, Fischer, Cams, Pfnor, Schopenhauer.

As the belief in the genuineness of the magnetic phenomena declined, men of science became very unwilling to have their names connected with the subject. The chief cause which operated to bring the study and practice of magnetism into ill-repute was the eagerness with which showmen and every description of fakir and charlatan seized upon this new science as a novel method of making money out of human credulity. Abuses of this kind have been, until quite recently, a serious hindrance to the progress of the investigation of the hypnotic phenomena.

In England hypnotism was not recognized until long after it was well known in France and Germany. Two physicians of London, Elliotson and Ashburner, took up the subject, but accomplished little more than injury to their own professional reputations.

However, the investigations of Dr. Braid of Manchester, in 1841, mark an important stage in the history of hypnotism. It was he who first established the suggestion theory on a scientific basis. To him also is due the name "hypnotism." Braid came to the conclusion that hypnotism and mesmerism were analogous states, but not identical, and he left magnetism as a state independent of hypnotism. The result of Braid's experiments was that he became convinced that there was no magnetic fluid or force emanating from the operator to the subject, and that the hypnotic state was caused by physiological modifications of the nervous system. He considered that the hypnotic state was purely subjective, and that sleep was brought about by the fatigue of the eyelids and the concentration of the attention on a single idea, consequent upon fixing the gaze on a small object. Braid was supported in his conclusions by Carpenter, the physiologist, and by a number of others.

At about this time, or a little later, an American named Grimes took up the study of hypnotism and, independently of Braid, arrived at the same conclusions. Among other American investigators should be mentioned Dods, Stone, and Darling.

These writers termed the phenomena of hypnosis "electro-biological." Contemporaneous with these was the French writer, Durand de Gros, who wrote under the pseudonym of Dr. Phillips.

In 1850 the doctrines of Braid were introduced in Bordeaux by Dr. Azam. He marie a number of experiments and published the results in the "Archives de Medecine."

Interest in the theory of suggestion now began to become more general. Numerous experiments were made by Velpeau, Folliu, Guerineau, Demarquay, and others, to test the value of hypnotism in surgery.

It was used with some success in performing operations without pain; but as it was not known then that anesthesia could be produced by suggestion, it was supposed that only the deeper stages of hypnosis were of value in surgery.

Lasegue discovered, in 1865, that catalepsy could be produced by closing the eyes of the patient. Dr. Liebault of Nancy, after having spent several years in studying the hypnotic phenomena, in 1866, published a book entitled, "Du sommeil et des Mats analogues consideres surtout an point de vue de Taction du moral sur le physique.'" This work is of considerable importance in the history of the progress of therapeutic suggestion. Liebault considered hypnotic sleep to be identical with natural sleep; that they are both due to the focussing of the attention and the nervous force upon the idea of sleep. In ordinary sleep, however, the subject is in relation with himself only, while in hypnosis the subject falls asleep with his thought fixed in relationship with the hypnotizes

In 1873 experiments in hypnotizing animals were made by Czermak and some others. Symptoms resembling the ordinary hypnotic state were produced in birds, lobsters, pigeons, rabbits, etc. Preyer, however, considered this to be a state of paralysis due to fear, and gave it the name "cataplexia."

In 1878 Charcot began his experiments at the Salpetriere. He found that catalepsy with anaesthesia could be produced by fixing the gaze upon a bright light. He also produced somnambulism from lethargy by rubbing the top of the patient's head.

About this time interest was again aroused in Germany by Hansen, the Danish hypno-tizer, Weinhold, Heidenhain, Ruhlmann, and others. Rumpf, Schneider, Preyer, and others brought forward various theories, physiological, chemical and psycho-physical.

The experiments at the Salpetriere did not attract a great deal of attention in France, but after the Medical School of Nancy, including Liebault, Bernheim, Beaunis, Liegeois, took up the subject of hypnotism, interest in it became more general.

The various theories have finally become sifted down to the Neurosis theory, which is the one supported at the Salpetriere, and the Suggestion theory of the school of Nancy, and the con-test between these two schools is still going on.

How, then, does hypnotism stand at the present day? We find many physicians of great scientific attainment using it successfully for the cure of disease. Leading psychologists and physiologists in every civilized country in the world are studying it. Only a very few persons deny its existence.

Mr. Ernest Hart, writing in the October Century of the present year, dwells at length upon what he terms the "Eternal Gullibility of Humanity." His conclusions are mainly drawn from the confessions of an individual who simulated the hypnotic state in public for the purpose of obtaining money. This fact is not new. It has been dwelt upon by the press in this country and abroad for a number of years, and is well understood by the intelligent public. Mr. Hart does not deny the existence of the hypnotic state.

The British Society for Psychical Research is still conducting earnest and painstaking investigations of hypnotism and many allied states. Writers of fiction, such as Crawford and Du Maurier, still find in it themes with which to embellish their novels.

If I may judge by my own personal experience, and by what I read generally, the public is still ignorant of the real nature of hypnotism. How much or how little hypnotism will be used in the future for the cure of disease, time alone can determine.